THE TRIUMPH OF CONTINUITY

AUTHORITARIANISM, CORRUPTION AND SLAUGHTER WILL FOLLOW

The winning candidate in Mexico’s presidential elections, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo of the coalition formed by the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena), Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM) and Partido del Trabajo (PT) parties based her electoral campaign on the promise to maintain the public policies promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO); and with this, in the words of the candidate, to build a “second floor” of what the Mexican president called the Fourth Transformation of the country (having been the first three: Independence; the War of Reforma; and the Mexican Revolution).

But what does it mean that López Obrador's policies continue?
According to the president, his government had a popular mandate to end the neoliberal policies that the governments of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (1982-2000 and 2012-2018) and the National Action Party (2000-2012) applied in the country, which resulted in a greater concentration of income in a minority; more inequality and poverty; greater subordination to the main capitalist powers; greater corruption; and the empowerment of the main organized crime organizations in the country.

For this reason, most voters in 2018 gave their confidence to López Obrador to change this reality that seriously affects the poor and middle classes.

And what did Lopez Obrador do? As a good magician, he deceived a large part of the population (around 60%) into believing that all the policies that had affected the population were now being “transformed” in favor of the people, especially the poorest people in the country.
The instrument used was to channel a large part of the budget from sectors such as health, education and natural disaster care to social programs through which direct monetary resources were granted to some 30 million inhabitants (the elderly, the disabled, single mothers, peasants and students), which, in the last year of its administration, amounted to up to 1 billion pesos ($60 billion).

In this way, a part of the poor and lower middle classes felt directly benefited from the government, and with this the social base and the electoral clientele of the government and the political parties that make up it expanded.

The problem with this is that institutionalized health care collapsed, and up to 50 million people who previously had health services were left out of the system and had to turn to private medicine for treatment (care dropped by 13.3% in public hospitals, but increased by 7% in private neighborhood pharmacies, which provide the service of a doctor).

Likewise, the deficiencies in the care of the Covid pandemic caused that of the 800,000 deaths in Mexico, there was an excess of deaths of the order of 350,000. This excess of deaths was due to the shortcomings of the health system.

During the pandemic, the government did not provide grants or loans to micro and small entrepreneurs, who create 70% of formal jobs, causing a million of these small businesses to go bankrupt during the pandemic, affecting hundreds of thousands of families.

Education was completely forgotten, which was reflected in the results of the OECD's PISA test in more than 80 countries, with Mexico ranked 51st in the last test conducted in 2022.

In addition, Mexico allocated only 3.2% of its GDP to education by 2024, while the OECD recommends that it should be 4%.

The AMLO government spent 3.6 times less per pupil in primary education and 3.9 times less in secondary education, than the average of the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

It also highlights that Mexico has the lowest rate of higher education among OECD countries, with only 27% of people between the ages of 25 and 34 reaching this level.

On the other hand, López Obrador determined an increase in minimum wages, which during his administration became 150% higher than at the beginning of his mandate, and a total of 22 million formal jobs were created.

However, the increase in minimum wages and the creation of formal jobs has not generated quality jobs, since during the López Obrador government the number of employees earning only a minimum wage (around $18 a day) rose from 8.5 million in 2018 to 19.2 million in 2023, which means that while more people have jobs, it is less well paid.

If we add to this that the average GDP growth during the López Obrador government will be 0.9% per year (the worst in 40 years), it explains that during the AMLO government 1,200,000 Mexicans left the country for the United States in search of a better standard of living, 57.8% more than the 760,000 Mexicans who emigrated between 2013 and 2018.

But it was not only the economic situation that led to greater emigration of Mexicans to the United States; the increase in violence and insecurity in the country was also a major cause.

Although López Obrador said that he would reverse the situation of insecurity that the country was experiencing, with a policy that he called “of hugs and not bullets,” that is, that he would not directly combat criminal organizations, but would address the social and economic causes that lead to crime of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, what really happened was that the government withdrew and let the drug cartels and criminal organizations dominate up to a third of the country’s territory, grow businesses like extortion, the assault on road transport and the control of illegal immigration, to direct it to the United States.

Accusations by journalists (both domestic and foreign), researchers, academics, opposition parties and non-governmental organizations about links to organized crime by members of the AMLO government (including himself), governors of his party, members of his family (his eldest son) and contractors and businessmen associated with his government, proliferated throughout his tenure in government, and although they were repeatedly denied by AMLO, the amount of data and information that was made public in Mexico and abroad on this matter was overwhelming.

Thus, the murders reached 190,000 during this government; the highest number ever recorded; the disappearances, during this government alone, reached 50,000, also the highest number ever recorded.

Furthermore, these elections have been the most violent in recent history, with 37 candidates for popularly elected positions murdered.
And all this is related to rates of corruption that even during the highly corrupt neoliberal governments, had not been recorded before.

AMLO determined that all government works were of “national security,” so it was not possible to audit them and review the use made of billions of pesos, which have not been accounted for and which, according to researchers, have ended up in accounts in tax havens abroad.

There are scandalous cases such as that of the official candidate for the government of the state of Veracruz, Rocío Nahle, who was Secretary of Energy for 5 years under the AMLO government, and the main person in charge of the construction of the Dos Bocas refinery, in the state of Tabasco (Gulf of Mexico), which is supposed to cost only 8 billion dollars; but its cost has already exceeded 20 billion dollars and it is not yet operational.

Nahle has been discovered luxury properties in Mexico and abroad for 300 million pesos ($17,640,000); and her son-in-law has been awarded concessions and contracts by the government for almost 700 million pesos ($41,176,000); but since the Attorney General of the Republic, who is supposed to be independent, has no interest in investigating the members of the ruling party, she is unpunished; as is Ignacio Ovalle (who was the first head of AMLO in the government) who was the director of the state-owned company Seguridad Alimentaria Mexicana. responsible for embezzlement of 18 billion pesos ($1,058,823,000). But not only has he not been investigated, but to protect him, AMLO gave him an appointment within the Ministry of the Interior, and he has not even been called to testify on this matter.

Likewise, the government's most emblematic project, the Mayan Train on the Yucatan Peninsula (which, according to many environmental organizations, is one of the most destructive ecocides in the world in recent decades), was supposed to cost 150 billion pesos ($8,823,529,000); but almost 600 billion pesos ($35,294,117,000) have already been spent, and the train is not yet fully operational (in addition to the fact that the service is slow and deficient).

According to Transparency International, Mexico has not moved from 126th place out of 180 countries in the fight against corruption and every year, up to 100 billion dollars are lost to the corruption of politicians and businessmen linked to the government.

For AMLO, neoliberal policies have fallen behind, but in terms of debt, the situation has worsened because now every Mexican owes 7% more than six years ago (the public debt increased by 76%), and in terms of economic growth per capita GDP decreased by 6.6%.

In terms of oil production, it is the lowest in 40 years with only 1,470,000 barrels per day of production; besides that, PEMEX is the most indebted oil company in the world ($106,000,000,000)

And in terms of public deficit, the figure of 5.9% for 2024 is the worst in 34 years.

As far as the concentration of economic power in a minority is concerned, this has not changed at all, and has even gotten worse, for example, Mexico's 14 super-rich increased their fortunes during the AMLO government by 70% and the richest man in Mexico and Latin America, Carlos Slim, a great ally of the President of Mexico, not only received contracts worth more than 60 billion pesos ($3,530,000,000) from this government, but also increased his personal fortune from 48 billion dollars in 2018 to more than 100 billion dollars today.

Thus, the country’s banks (most of them foreign) have made the highest profits in their history during the AMLO government, so the president’s claim that “political power has already been separated from economic power” is yet another lie.

And what about militarization, since AMLO increased the budget of the armed forces by 150% to assign them up to 250 functions previously performed by civilians, with the obvious goal that the works, services, and functions to be performed would not be audited, supervised, and evaluated by the other powers of the Union, by civil society or by the international community. As we have already mentioned, practically all government activity was classified as “national security”, which meant that there was no longer any way for transparency and accountability on the part of the government.

For this reason, López Obrador tried throughout his government to eliminate the autonomous bodies charged with preventing government corruption, as well as to hold the authorities accountable to society. For example, the National Institute for Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data, was constantly attacked by AMLO, reducing its budget, and preventing the appointment of all the commissioners that make up its board, to stop its operation. But the Supreme Court allowed the Institute to continue operating, even though the ruling majority in the Senate opposed appointing all its commissioners.

AMLO has tried to undermine the Judiciary by accusing it (without proof) of being corrupt and subordinate to the oligarchs; but what is publicly denounced is that the former president of the Court during the first four years of the AMLO government, retired minister Arturo Zaldívar, received orders from the president to pressure judges and magistrates to rule on various matters in favor of the government. Now Zaldívar is one of Claudia Sheinbaum's main advisors.

For this reason, AMLO is trying to “transform” the Judiciary, for which it sent a constitutional reform that establishes the popular election of ministers, magistrates and judges, so that its political party would have the possibility of controlling the Judiciary, if it remained as the majority party (two-thirds of Congress to amend the Constitution), something it was unable to achieve during its government, so that the few constitutional changes it made had to be made through alliances with opposition parties.

Likewise, throughout his government, AMLO has disqualified the independent press, harassed journalists who have documented the corruption of his government; attacked the middle classes, disqualifying them as “conservatives” and even as “Nazis”, for the simple fact that they did not support most of his government’s policies; ignored and never received mothers seeking their children and/or husbands disappeared by organized crime; ordered the suppression of feminist demonstrations that have been ignored during his government; also he has called fake environmentalists those who have criticized his government for the damage to nature caused by its mega-works; and at no time, throughout his term, has he met with the leadership of opposition parties; and has also disqualified lawmakers who opposed his reforms as “traitors to the fatherland.”

All this has created a division between those who support and those who oppose the government, which has polarized the country in a very dangerous way, to the point where both sides talk about destroying the adversary.

All this reflects his authoritarian and undemocratic way of governing, to the point that he went so far as to say that his “moral authority” was above the law, and reproached journalists and intellectuals who criticize his lack of adherence to constitutional norms, with the expression “don’t tell me that the law is the law”, demonstrating his contempt for the laws he swore to uphold and enforce.

Throughout the electoral process, he intervened illegally on behalf of his coalition of parties, which led the electoral authority (the National Electoral Institute) to reprimand him up to 53 times, while the electoral court sanctioned him up to 30 times, without deterring him from continuing to illegally support his candidates.

In short, the triumph of Mrs. Sheinbaum (former head of government of Mexico City), who has been a subordinate of López Obrador for 25 years, is the continuation of all these disastrous policies, which will continue to plunge the country into corruption, inequality, violence, insecurity, and mediocrity.

But it seems that the majority of Mexicans who depend on the direct aid that the government gives them, prefer to receive that payment, to try to rescue the country from this alliance between corrupt politicians-oligarchs-military and organized crime, which has risen to the top of the country's political and economic power, in order to continue plundering the treasury and exploiting the country's natural wealth and the Mexican population.